


And I’ll Stay By Your Side

by luxeternal



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, BAMF Brunnhilde | Valkyrie (Marvel), Dysfunctional Relationships, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Gen, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Loki (Marvel) Has Issues, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Loki (Marvel) is a mess, Loki Lives (Marvel), Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, POV Multiple, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), References to Depression, Sick Loki (Marvel), The Revengers - Freeform, Thor (Marvel) is Not Stupid, Thor (Marvel) is a Good Bro, Thor (Marvel) is overwhelmed, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27231640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxeternal/pseuds/luxeternal
Summary: As the Revengers work to keep the Statesman metaphorically afloat, Loki retreats further into the dark recesses of his own mind. Concerned by his brother’s unusual behavior, Thor attempts to figure out what is going on. He doesn’t like what he finds.ft. Valkyrie giving no fucks, Thor doing his best, and Bruce having a minor crisis.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Thor, Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Loki (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	And I’ll Stay By Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> So it’s been a while since I’ve written anything, not to mention fanfiction, so please forgive the roughness. I’m just trying to get back into the heads of these characters at this point. This is going to be two or three chapters I think, basically just an excuse for Loki to suffer because I have issues and project onto fictional characters in unhealthy amounts (insert tiktok audio lol).  
> Hopefully you’ll find some enjoyment in this; I know I enjoyed getting back into writing it.

Thor was almost ready to admit that he was overwhelmed. He’d spent all week rushing from one meeting to another, having already spoken with the former librarian of Asgard to discuss the preservation of the traditional history of the realm, and preparing to speak with the schoolmaster about the children’s education. It was too much, all of it, trying to hold together the struggling remnants of his people. There were so few, and yet so many. So much of Asgard had been destroyed, but there were still so many mouths to feed, so many injuries to treat, and a major shortage of supplies to top it all. 

He was grateful, at least, for the presence of Heimdall by his side, a steady friend who could be counted on to steer him in the right direction, his trusty advisor, wise and seemingly all knowing. He knew that Heimdall would be there to be the voice of reason, the balance to his own fiery temper. Perhaps he was just bitter that Loki could not be the same way. 

Speaking of whom, the infuriating god had practically confined himself to his room for days on end, only making an appearance at mealtimes, and even then hardly eating a bite before retreating back into his room again. Thor did not know or understand his brother’s reasons for this strange behavior, but he was not exactly surprised. Loki, when they were children, had been the most antisocial boy he knew, hardly ever coming out to play with him, Sif and the Warriors Three. He had always been too wrapped up in his books and his magic to associate with the others, and when he did, it was with thinly veiled disdain, as if he thought himself above them. 

Thor was receiving the same treatment from his brother now, as he struggled with keeping the entire population of Asgard alive and well on this relatively tiny ship, and Loki moped in his room. Thor was beginning to grow irritated, as the endless stream of meetings and plans were made, and they seemed to be getting nowhere. Food was running out. Fuel was running out. Tempers were running low, and they had only been on this god forsaken ship a month. It was estimated that it would take about three times that amount to reach Midgard without the aid of the Bifrost.

“Morning, your Majesty,” a tall man greeted him as they passed each other moving opposite directions. 

“Good morning to you too, Helvar,” he returned, although it wasn’t. Helvar was on the rationing committee, and knew just as well as he did the dire situation they faced on that front. They had met just the day before, to discuss how to proceed, and had come to the conclusion that each person would have to live on half rations for the following two months until they reached Midgard. They hadn’t announced the news to the people yet, but he knew that the other man was dreading it as much as himself. His population was already unsettled enough as it was, and this news would certainly not please them. 

“Norns help us,” he murmured as he entered the meeting room.

__________________

Valkyrie had been skeptical of the food at first, but as she licked the grey, pasty liquid off her spoon, she had to admit that it tasted considerably better than it looked. The powder had been found in the pantry, sealed in little foil pouches for rehydration. She didn’t know or particularly care what vile chemical nutrients the food packets were made from, but powdered food was better than no food, and she was starving. 

Sitting across from her at the metal table, Loki didn’t seem to agree. In fact, he looked positively unhappy as he played with his spoon, refusing to eat. She couldn’t quite tell whether his unpleasantness was caused by her presence, or the food itself, or perhaps a combination of both. She didn’t know what his problem was, but she could only assume that Thor was involved; everything he did seemed to have a way of angering Loki that nothing else did. 

“Enjoying your meal, highness?” she asked when the awkward silence finally became unbearable. 

To her surprise, he answered. “Not really, no. I don’t typically find pleasure in ingesting foul substances with a texture suspiciously similar to bilgesnipe dung, do you?” He set down the spoon delicately, turning his frigid gaze upon her.

“You know me, I don’t really care what it is so long as there’s alcohol to accompany it,” she said, attempting a laugh.  
He sniffed in disdain. Fine then. If he wanted to be a pretentious bastard, so be it.

“Surely you must be used to more luxurious cuisine than this, what with being a prince and all,” she continued, hoping to prod him further into annoyance.

“I am not a prince!” He cut her off, abruptly standing and knocking his chair to the ground with a loud clatter, earning them some looks from the other Asgardians in the dining hall.

“Whoa, sorry,” she said quickly, raising her hands in a defensive position. Loki kept his glare fixed on her as he slowly sat down again, never releasing eye contact.

“I was never truly a prince of Asgard,” he went on. “I was supposed to be king, king of Jotunheim, king of Midgard, ruler of Sakaar, anything except here on this bloody ship, once more property of the kingdom that once enslaved me.”

“...Enslaved you?” Valkyrie asked in confusion. She didn’t know the full story behind Loki’s whole complex, but she knew enough to know that that couldn’t be true. He was adopted, true, and she knew not from where. But hadn’t he been raised as Odin’s own son? She would hardly call that enslavement.

“Had they told me the truth from the beginning, I would not have suffered the mockery and hatred at the hands of a people that thought my skills were unfit for a prince of Asgard. I wouldn’t have been cast aside like a broken toy in favor of the golden, beloved hero of the realm. I wouldn’t-“ 

He paused. “Why I am I telling you this? It is no business of yours.”  
Valkyrie blinked. That was more than even she had been expecting him to reveal, and yet somehow she was left with even more questions. 

“Wait-” she began, but he was already standing to leave. 

“Please excuse me,” he said, the anger drained from his voice, replaced once again with cold politeness. “I am actually feeling rather unwell, and would retire to my chambers.”  
There would be no more confessions, and so she simply nodded as Loki stalked away.

Valkyrie was soon joined by Korg and with him, a small crowd of other unknown Asgardians. Their friendliness was contagious, the opposite extreme from her previous companion’s mannerisms, and she found herself swept up in their conversations. 

But something still nagged in her mind even so. Loki had said he would have been the king of Jotunheim. What had he meant by that? She knew so little about him, other than that he was Thor’s adopted brother, and a former friend of the grandmaster, an Asgardian who, like her, had found himself on Sakaar and attempted to forget his old life and start a new one. Was it possible that-? No, surely Odin would not have… he couldn’t possibly have...

_______________________

Loki, for once, hadn’t lied when had said he felt unwell. There was something about the food, he thought, that disagreed with him, and so he had committed himself to eat as little as possible until they reached Midgard. It was no matter for a god such as himself; after all, he had gone without food for longer periods of time than this. His invasion of Midgard had been such a time, as well as his imprisonment on Asgard. As a child, his mother had told him it was unhealthy to do so, but he didn’t see anything wrong with it, and now he knew why. He was Jotun; he was different. He had different strengths, different weaknesses, and a different physiology from Thor, Frigga, and all the other Asgardians. It explained so much of his childhood, why he had always been particularly affected by heat, and reacted strongly to some foods. It was stupid of his ‘family’ to have thought that they could take him in and raise him like an Aesir, without studying the anatomy of his true race. 

He lay on his back, feeling the hard springs of his tiny bed poke into him uncomfortably. He had tried so hard to escape them all, and yet he found himself back here again. Not on Asgard, but still with Asgardians, because as he brother had become so fond of saying, Asgard was a people, not a place. It was a nice sentiment, he thought, but one rather diminished by the fact that two thirds of Asgard’s people had been wiped out during Ragnarok. He doubted that even his brother understood the full scope of the damage that had been done. 

He reached out and retrieved his book from the stand beside him, without leaving his place on top of the bed, and began to mindlessly flip through the well worn pages. He had read this book before, and the many times showed in the thin and yellowed parchment. It still, however, held the most precious knowledge that Loki knew, and for that reason it was the item he treasured most; it had travelled with him undetected throughout his journey to Sakaar, and was the sole survivor from his beloved library to make it out of Ragnarok. This was the book from which he had studied magic as a young child, and the book he still consulted even now when attempting new spells. It was the one Frigga had read to him, and the one he now read to himself. There was history in these pages, and simply being able to witness it somehow seemed to allow him to forget his own place within it. 

He skimmed a few pages at a time, not so much reading for the information but for the comfort and familiarity he felt in doing so. The book was warm in his hands, and reminded him of simpler times. He had only just reached the section on illusions, his favorite part, when he was interrupted by a knock on his door. 

“Thor, if it’s you, this is really not a good time,” he called out. Sure enough, it was his brother’s voice that answered him on the other side of the wooden door.

“When is it ever a good time with you, brother,” said Thor, in a long suffering tone.  
Loki rolled his eyes. 

“All I ask is that you would leave me in peace - your political troubles are none of my concern.” Loki shouted back across the door, unmoving still.

“On the contrary, they are your concern, seeing as you’re one of the idiots under my rule, and you’re one of the idiots that are all going to die if we run out of food. Loki. You know I could use your ideas here. I just don’t understand why you-”

“Leave me alone,” Loki hissed through gritted teeth. Why should he care if they all died anyways? He was exhausted, too exhausted to even contemplate going out and discussing plans with Thor and whoever else he had put in charge of these things. It was easier to lie here and sleep, just as he had been doing for most of his time on the ship so far. If only Thor would leave him alone…

“Loki! Loki, are you even listening to me?” Thor’s voice once again cut through the fog his mind had been immersed in, wrenching him painfully back to reality. He had no idea how much time had passed - a few minutes at most, he guessed, as Thor was still standing outside his door yelling at him. But it had felt like longer to him, or maybe his perception of time was just faulty. It was hard to tell though, because lately these time stretchings had been happening more frequently than ever. 

“Leave me be,” he mumbled. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Just… let me sleep.”

“Sleep? It’s mid afternoon, brother, what are you talking about? Are you ill?”

Gods, Thor really was more persistent today than usual. 

“No.” He let his eyes close shut, the mere effort of the lie tiring him even further. “I’m fine.”

“Alright…” He could hear that Thor didn’t quite believe him, but it was no matter. It seemed that his brother was satisfied well enough with his answer, and the spell he had placed on his door would ensure that his brother would not pester him further. 

“I will see you tomorrow, then,” Thor said. Loki waited for the footsteps to fade out of earshot as Thor walked away, then breathed a sigh of relief. He would deal with life tomorrow.  
He had ventured out once today, and it had been enough. Now he would sleep, and with it would come the only relief that he could find from the reality of the ship’s situation. Asleep, he was not the disgraced prince of Asgard, and he was not the remorseless villain that had once sought to conquer Midgard. He was simply himself, beholden to no one, free from that horrible, all-encompassing sense of guilt he just couldn’t seem to shake.

____________________

Bruce had not expected the journey to Midgard to take so long. He had thought, in such foolishness, that the strange new technology of foreign Sakaar would provide revolutionized travel, bringing them to Earth within days. Perhaps he had also misjudged the true distance between Asgard and Earth, only ever having known that the Bifrost travelled instantaneously. 

He had been wrong, either way, and now the people of Asgard were paying for his mistakes. Thor told him that it was not his fault, that their escape from the destruction of Asgard had been hurried and chaotic enough, and that it was impossible for them to have brought any supplies other than what was already on the ship. 

But Bruce knew better. If he had done his calculations correctly, he would have known that Eros was close enough for them to make a stop. He would have known that their fuel would have lasted to make that distance of a journey, and no longer. 

Of course, that opportunity had been passed now, and their one chance to acquire supplies and food had been ruined, all because of a few botched numbers. He was an idiot, a fool. Why had he of all people ended up here? Tony would have been more useful in this situation, or even Clint. 

He often wondered what they were doing as he sat cooped up in the many tiny chambers of the Statesman, watching day after day pass until they either reached home or died of starvation. Every time he thought of the old team he immediately felt guilty, because he knew that his new one was counting on him here and now. There were children on board, he kept remembering. And countless sick and injured and weak Asgardians, all counting on him. He did what he could but he also knew all too well that they would never be able to continue like this. They either needed more food or more fuel, and they needed it right away. If only they had stopped on Eros. If only.

________________

There was no sun to herald the dawn of a new day on the Statesman, as the empty space surrounding them provided a constant and unchanging backdrop for their travels. Thor had thought it important, though, that the people maintain a sense of time, so he had implemented a system of buzzers. They were to ring out every hour, much as they had at the palace on Asgard, if slightly less pleasant a sound. They marked the passing of every hour without fail, echoing throughout the crowded halls and rooms of the Statesman, a different pattern for morning, day, evening, and night. 

As Thor listened to the bell-like ringing echoing throughout the halls, he remembered his brother’s promise to him. Today, Loki would allow Thor to consult him, lend his considerable knowledge to the conservation efforts, as he had been neglecting doing for so long. Thor didn’t understand why- at the beginning of their journey, his brother had been surprisingly cooperative, as if perhaps he as well realized the value of their slowly- healing relationship. The destruction of Asgard had brought them together, for a time, but now it was as if Loki didn’t care about anything anymore. 

Even so, Thor was looking forward to today’s meeting. He had hardly seen Loki around the ship at all lately, and as much as he hated to admit it, he was realizing that, after spending so much time with Asgardian battle generals and other ‘important people,’ he actually enjoyed his brother’s company more than most others. Being king was proving to be nothing as he had imagined- the responsibilities of looking after a broken people, stranded helpless in deep space was not a dilemma he had expected to face in the first year of his reign. He was finding that the rule was really more of a shared position, taking input from others, formulating plans, and giving orders for them to be carried out. 

“Loki!” He called out cheerfully as he reached the door to his brother’s room. “The meeting is about to begin! Remember your promise- you are coming, are you not?”

He received no answer. Of course. It had been foolish of him to think that his brother would be as enthusiastic as he. 

“Come on, Loki. I tire of having to prod you from your room in such a fashion. If you would just come willingly this would be a great deal easier. Or would you prefer that I command you to come, as I am still your king?” 

He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, but to his great surprise, he still received no answer. Was it possible that Loki still slept, even at this late hour of the morning? 

Something was wrong. Thor took the door handle in his firm grasp and tried to wrench it open, only to find that it refused to budge. Unsurprising, for his brother. It was no matter, though, because Loki’s spells could not withstand the destruction that followed as Thor ripped the door off its hinges with his bare hands. Wood splinters rained down onto the floor before him, and he stepped inside. 

The room was empty, not a sign of life to be found. A book lay still half opened at the foot of the bed, and the sheets were slightly wrinkled, as if Loki had been lying on top of them before, but not even the telltale glimmer of emerald magic remained to indicate that Loki now occupied the room. He was truly gone. 

_____________________

Valkyrie had been fully immersed in her hand of cards when she was interrupted by a distressed god of thunder. Sitting circled around the low table in the center of her room were a few Asgardian warriors, who, like her, possessed considerable skill in the strategy of an Asgardian game resembling Midgardian poker. They gambled with food packets, high stakes that Valkyrie knew she should take more seriously, but in the moment, she found she didn’t much care. The sore absence of alcohol on this ship was beginning to irk her, and eating was the only real pleasure that remained for her to enjoy. 

“What is it this time?” She turned to the king with a lack of respect that startled the warriors sitting beside her. Thor seemed unfazed by her rudeness, only continued to fidget nervously, worry written plainly across his face.

“You haven’t seen my brother around anywhere, have you?” he asked hopefully, with something close to desperation in his expression. Valkyrie shook her head. 

“No I have not, and I don’t particularly wish to either,” she said, earning herself a few chuckles from her companions. Thor was not laughing however, as she saw her when his expression darkened like clouds descending even further upon an already stormy sky.

“He is not in his room,” he stated, to which Valkyrie blinked in surprise. Unusual behavior for Loki, sure, but hardly cause for concern.

“So?”

“He does not appear to be anywhere else on the ship either,” Thor said. “Or, at least, no one has been able to find him. I’m just about ready to send a search party out after him.” 

Valkyrie shrugged. “I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. He can take care of himself, you know.”

“Yes, but I do worry,” Thor went on. “He hardly eats, he never leaves his room, and it appears all he does in there is sleep! If you truly cared, you would help me search for him.”

“At the risk of offending you, your majesty, I don’t think it’s worth your while to run about searching for Loki. Right now, his feelings are the least of our worries.” 

Valkyrie turned back to her cards, indicating that she was done with the conversation. Thor shook his head in frustration, and stormed out of the room.  
Valkyrie only laughed. “Now where were we? Oh right, I was beating your asses.” 

The Asgardian warriors stood around her, mouths agape. No doubt they were shocked by her lack of respect towards revered and honored, Thor, king of Asgard. Hilarious. He was no king of hers; and she had shown manners too. 

Asgardians. She had been apart from them for too long, their quaint, archaic customs were so laughable when seen in light of the perspective her time on Sakaar had given her.

She couldn’t help but wonder though, if she should turn around now and go with Thor. Loki’s behavior earlier had been highly unusual for a god who had never before divulged any information about his past. And what he had told her... It troubled her more than she liked to admit.

___________________

Loki was freezing. It was a strangely foreign sensation to him, the way his body seemed unable to stop shivering, struggling to draw in shaky breaths as he attempted to draw warmth into himself. He reached for his seidr, but he was too cold, too tired. He didn’t fully know where he was, and in his foggy confusion, he didn’t much care. He only knew that he was no longer wrapped in slumber’s warm embrace, safe and enclosed in his chambers. He wished to be there, for the peaceful oblivion sleep would bring. 

But try as he might, he couldn’t find it. His eyes closed, yes, and the pain was lessened, but he was still haunted by dreams that were somehow more vivid than reality, more painful, more real. He didn’t really know how he had come to be here, wherever here was, and he was having trouble grasping at the memories that he knew should be there. 

There was something important he was forgetting…

**Author's Note:**

> More to come...
> 
> Any comments or feedback would be highly highly appreciated! Thanks for reading.


End file.
